Polarizing pandemics. Identity, emotions, and attitudes toward Covid-19 prevention

When Covid-19 hit the world, the initial response was that political representatives and people were united in their efforts to reduce the spread of the virus.

However, as the most acute phase declined, the situation surrounding Covid-19 quickly divided politicians and citizens in most countries on how to deal with the pandemic, creating a polarized society, which influenced both preventative behavior and attitudes.

We aim to analyze how such polarization arises and what it leads to in terms of attitudes and behaviors related to Covid-19, such as adherence to regulations and vaccination.

We here focus on “affective polarization”, which reflects social identity divisions and emotions related to belonging to a group and seeing some other group as a hated outgroup.

In three parts, we explore 1) how the political elite contributed to a polarized society through their social media rhetoric, 2) how such rhetoric influence individuals’ affective polarization, attitudes and behaviors related to the pandemic, and 3) the psychological factors that explain attitudes toward vaccination.

We employ a variety of methods such as computational text-analyses of social media material, controlled experiments, and a large-scale survey.

To create a society that is equipped to handle another pandemic, it is of highest priority to understand the psychological mechanisms related to identity and partisanship that underpin the attitudes and behaviors of individuals in relation to Covid-19.